AfroPic 0.3.2r2

[bilestyle]

just one bug fix on a bug i missed (thnx to squeed for pointing it out) for elementary streams over 4 gigs i believe it was the problem... mpgtx was being called from usr/bin instead of from inside afropic itself, that is now fixed

sorry about the sloppy debugging/updating. Hopefully when i finish trainin one of my friends in the tao of applescript he will be able to help me update and debug making the process less of a issue.

http://www.anycities.com/user/bilestyle/Files/AfroPic.sit

[changwei]

Hi bilestyle,

I ran into a small problem with AfroPic yesterday. I used OSEx and got M2V and AC3 out of a DVD, Spy Game. After AfroPic was done with mplexed the 2 elemtary files into couple of temp.mpgs, I noticed that there were 3 temp.mpg's created, ie temp-1, temp-2 and temp-3. Temp-1 is 3.9G, temp-2 is around 800mb and temp-3 is only 12k in size. I thought I did something wrong at the beginning, so I killed the process, deleted the files and then restarted AfroPic. This time it still created 3 temp.mpg files. Anyways, I then ignored it and let it ran. And this morning, I got 2 movie.mpg's. And this is where my problem is. I can't get Toast to recognize the 2nd movie.mpg file. Even after I ran VCDGearX. This has never happened before. I don't know if this is anything to do with the 3rd temp.mpg that it created because I've never seen that before either. Can you please hlep? Thanks.

[changwei]

Nevermind. I just got it to work. Toast won't recognize it if I just convert it from mpeg to mpeg, which it worked flawlessly before. Anyways, what I did was to convert it from mpeg to bin and it worked! However, I still have no idea why temp-3.mpg was created.

[ssevenup]

I am new to Afropic, and I have been working with it this weekend. I have looked at many options for DVD -> SVCD on the MAC. I find Afropic the easiest of the bunch to understand, but I did run into a couple of roadblocks. First, I wish I had found the "manual" posted elsewhere on this forum sooner. I wish the tutorial on his web site had reference to Afropic. I started with an Osex ripped VOB on one drive, and made my target on another. Afropic created the shell script as expected and chewed away at the job for a day or so. When it came time to mux the audio with the video, the path had been generated incorrectly and the script happily continued to the next step. It deleted all the work that had taken a day to accomplish. I verified that the script had the location of the ac3 correct at the start, but looked at the source directory for the mux. There is no error checking or testing in the script at all. I sent off a note to the author about this this morning. I took the script and modified it myself to avoid this in the future (I hope). I also found that if the source and destination directories are the same, the bug does not manifest. I also installed (compiled) most of the wrapped binaries myself so they don't run from within Afropic. I never found a source for movtoy4m other than extracting it from Afropic, so that's what I did. Here is a code fragmant with my addition.

/sw/bin/movtoy4m -h 480 -w 480 -F 30000:1001 -a 4:3 -i temp-1.mpg | /sw/bin/mpeg2enc -v 1 -V 230 -S 9999 -b 2000 -2 3 -4 2 -f 5 -r 16 -a 2 -M 0 -g 12 -G 15 -n n -o temp1
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
echo "Errors resulted" >&2
exit 1
fi


This way if something bails, it exits before unlinking all your hard work (I hope). I would be happy to help the author make the shell scripts a lot smarter. I have no Applescript experience to speak of, but I have been shell scripting a lot lately. I have learned the hard way that you can never have too much error checking and cleanup code included. Whatever can go wrong ... will. (Thanks to Mr. Murphy)

--MM

p.s. It never really comes out and says anywhere, so once Afropic is done with the bin/cue process, is there no way to use Toast to create the SVCD's? Or are the open source solutions described in the "manual" the only option? Also, can Afropic create XVCD's or XSVCD's in letterbox? Of course this is the wrong question because obviously the command line tools CAN do so, but Afropic does not mention it.

[[*]_BonKerS_[*]]

I dont know if this has to do with you or with the people that make mpeg2enc or whatever... but are we ever going to see multiple pass encoding like PC utilities? I mean, when I have used TMPEGenc on the PC it produces beautiful video, but the stuff that Afropic spits out isn't even close to that...

I am just hoping that the mac will produce an encoding suite that is at least on the same level as TMPEGenc.

[bilestyle]

well no offense my friend.. but if you think that we cant get just as good encoding of out mpeg2enc than tmpegenc.. than you dont know NEARLY enough about it...educate yourself before you criticize. Its due to ignorance that plagues a good chunk of mac users that deters the best developers in *nix from porting great software to darwin-- if its not all wrapped up in a pretty GUI than people think it is crap... its just a damn shame, thats all i have to say. It makes me reconsider any efforts i was going to put into new processes i have in mind, not nearly enough respect is paid for the hard work people put into things. (this is not on behalf of myself, but i was extremely riled by some ignorant posts i saw earlier today on behalf of the ingenious package that is mplayer/mencoder)--okay thats my two cents

[squeed]

Bilestyle,

You rock. Don't let any bad apples get you down. AfroPic rules !

-Squeed
http://www.squeeds.com
VCD & SVCD Support For Mac

[changwei]

bilestyle,
I really appreciate the time and the hard work that you've put into AfroPic. It keeps getting better and better!! Don't let us down. I am sure that there are many others who use and appreciate AfroPic.

I just have 2 requests for AfroPic.
1.) Is it possible to make the converting faster without loosing too much quailty?

2.) It would be really great if AfroPic can encode subtitles. I've enjoyed couple French movies lately and it would be nice if I can encode the original dialogue with English subtitles.

Anyways, thank you again for making AfroPic possible!!

[bilestyle]

you really dont know how much the kind words help, thanks guys. im sorry if my earlier post was harsh but i have just been very frustrated lately. I for one has criticized mplayer before (although i was aware there was more to it than meets the eye)

changwei -

in regards to the speed, without quality getting too comprimised its not much there isn't much i can do, we have to leave speed increases to the fine folks who develop the mjpeg tools, or anyone with knowledge of altivec optimization (not me unfortunately)

with regards to subtitles, be happy because there is light at the end of the tunnel there are a few different subtitle methods im workin with right now- and worry not ill keep you guys updated.

[[*]_BonKerS_[*]]

bilestyle, I didn't mean to offend when I asked about the mpeg2enc vs TMPEGenc comparison, but just like you said... I dont know anything abount mpeg2enc.

I mean, I pretty much only know how to 'cd' into and out of directories using the terminal... yet everytime I have a problem with AfroPic you manage to 'read' the terminal output and actually understand it. It is obvious that you know a great deal about programming and video compression (etc) which is why I asked you about mpeg2enc.

I do appreciate your constant updates updates of AfroPic and your goal to reach a perfect DVD to (S)VCD program, but please dont misconstrew my lack of information as threating your program or your intelligence.

I didn't mean to offend! :)

[[*]_BonKerS_[*]]

PS. Could you please tell me where I might be able to find more information on mpeg2enc and/or tell me about the multipass encoding abilities.

[bilestyle]

before my semi apology rant here is a page on mpeg2enc info (slightly outdated, if you really want good info the man page is the best place to look)

http://roguelife.org/~fujita/MJPEG/mpeg2enc.html

now in regards to 2-3 pass encoding i dont know about any options that apply for mpeg2enc, but with svcd i don't see that to be necessary, the quality is already good enough. i only see those forms of encoding to be necessary with mpeg-1 and divx, if you do vbr with svcd you should be well enough off without multiple pass encoding.

--on another note

its okay, i've just been frustrated the last few days over a new process i've been working on (dvd drive (no need for osex) direct to svcd/vcd...) and its been driving me mad, unfortunately i cant plan any public release if i do get it sorted out because of the inclusion of decss, even though under fair use laws we SHOULD be able to decss things we OWN and want to make backups of however, the MPAA is going to fuss over every dollar they can bitch about using such technologies and i cant do much about that, not being a big corporation and all (government tends to lean towards the side of big business, especially with this president being such a moron-- sorry for the off topic remark but i really do hate that illiterate putz)

[[*]_BonKerS_[*]]

Dude its all good about the rant... and as far as direct DVD to S/VCD I personally dont believe that that should be a big concern... mainly because things would go a lot faster if everything was on the hard drive. But that is just me, any one else agree with me?